Solihull’s VCSE is Ready for Success

VCSE organisations working in Solihull are celebrating their achievements on Development in Social Enterprise’s Ready for Success project. The project followed our successful Community Enterprise for Success programmes of support for local VCSE organisations and has been funded by Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council’s transformation directorate.

The Ready for Success project is part of “Solihull Together for Better Lives” which aims to transform social care and health services to increase choice, control and independence by ensuring health and social care services meet current and future needs. 23 organisations took part in the bespoke programme of support designed to ensure organisations were prepared for future commissioning and procurement of services (tender ready).

In March 2016 organisations attended and awards ceremony to recognise their achievements and saw the formal launch of the Health and Wellbeing Networking Directory. Karen Murphy, Assistant Director, Public Health and Commissioning thanked the group for engaging with the six month business development programme. Karen continued “We know that the process of commissioning and procurement can cause anxiety for smaller local organisations, and not be a pleasant experience if ill prepared. Procurement practices have traditionally tended to favour big organisations and we hope programmes like this will go some way towards levelling the playing field. We are committed to investing in our local providers and this piece of work has flagged up learning for us too, things we can do better. Above all, we see you as our partners and thank you for the work you do.”

David Lane, Chief Executive at Development in Social Enterprise said: “Since last October we have worked closely with organisations delivering a wide range of services including advice and guidance, advocacy, mental health, recovery support, and therapeutic indoor and outdoor activities. There was a genuine desire amongst the group to identify and address development areas, explore business opportunities and build relationships with one another for the benefit of service users.”